What is the best antivirus right now?

[Camsung]

In your opinion, what is the best antivirus/internet security suite currently available on the market? Please back up your answers with reasoning and evidence.

[whatthe_fuzz]

ZERO internet 

 

thats the only way. 

 

but if you must internet then theyre all pretty much the same

[HutchisonSorbo]

Either Kaspersky or Bitdefender if you're looking for all in one programs. They aren't resource intensive and get the job done. Or you could just avoid shady sites, but it's nice to have piece of mind.

[ttam]

Honestly there isn't a best due to each having their own 'list' of what they look for and or catch. One might catch this big one but slip right past the other great AV. This is why it's a good idea to update your AV often because they are always adding new suspects to the list.

 

Right now the list is pretty even when it comes to which is best (tested thoroughly)

- Avast

- Comodo

- Microsoft Security Essentials

- Avira

- Comodo

- UnThreat

- Lavasoft

- Panda Cloud

- AVG

 

It really is a personal preference on which you want to use. The most common used I find are AVG, Avast and MSE.

On a customers computer who doesn't purchase my AV Suite (eSet Nod32 + Malwarebytes) I often install MSE on their systems.

 

I don't run any AV on my personal computers. Never have and never had a virus. Just don't click on stupid stuff

[KamiKatze]

+1 for Kaspersky. Lightweight, never had a virus with it.

[Sors]

This site makes unbiased tests on all antivirus, and publish the results each month:

 

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

 

This are the real world usage reports for the month of august:

 

http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/avc_factsheet2013_08.pdf

 

If you look at the chart, only 3 antivirus managed to block 100% of the 440+ threats they were exposed to,  Microsoft security essentials was one of the worst, not even qualifing to be in the table, right now is the lowest denominator in antiviruses, all the tested programs except 1 did better than microsoft's.

 

I have been using kaspersky since 2 years ago, have to deal with many, many virus from the PCs I fix for clients, and it has never fail me.  (Plus right now kaspersky is giving a free copy of battlefield 3 with every antivirus in my country)

[DaftBehemoth]

MSE and Avast's free edition. They're pretty much the only ones worth bothering with. Careful browsing/ torrenting is a far better antivirus than anything.

[Sors]

MSE and Avast's free edition. They're pretty much the only ones worth bothering with. Careful browsing/ torrenting is a far better antivirus than anything.

Careful browsing is NOT better, several popular sites have had infectious adds on them, you don't even need to click on them.  Not that you should not be careful, it will absolutely help.

[GrievingJosh]

Common sense.

 

In all seriousness I use AVG, because it's free and works fine.

[KieranThePCGuy]

I use the standard security that comes with Windows 8 (Windows Defender) and have Malwarebytes Anti-Malware running as well, perfect combination for me, doesn't slow my computer down and has kept my computer protected to this day. 

[tycheleto]

Using Webroot Secureanywhere, extremely light and really fast. Very well reviewed too. Expensive though.

[Camsung]

Do you guys use third party firewalls, or do you just install a single antivirus program and then let the Windows firewall do the rest?

[jbr]

Check the tests online.

 

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AqYA2vdcMeFleKyExoMCmXqbvZx4?p=best+antivirus&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-900

 

Google or Yahoo your question first and chances are you'll get an answer right away because people have asked the same thing before.

[boggle4321]

i like avast, but you have to tweak it a fair bit to stop it poping up all the time.

[Camsung]

i like avast, but you have to tweak it a fair bit to stop it poping up all the time.

What sort of tweaks?

[DaftBehemoth]

Careful browsing is NOT better, several popular sites have had infectious adds on them, you don't even need to click on them.  Not that you should not be careful, it will absolutely help.

Ah. I forgot to mention, Adblock

[boggle4321]

What sort of tweaks?

nothing to special, just going into the settings and select things like "gaming mode" and unselecting stuff like "show security popups"

[frontliner]

Linux or BSD

[yuh25]

I liked Kaspersky because it's lightweight. But I just use commonsense now.

[Toby]

What sort of tweaks?

 

I'm not sure what he did, but you only need to click settings, silent mode and then check the box.

[Stewie]

I've been using Kaspersky for years and I've recommended it to quite a few friends. Great program.

[CwGoh]

Kaspersky or just go with Microsoft Security Essentials.

[Mooshi]

I use Avast currently because I don't feel like digging out my rarely used ODD to install Kaspersky off of my motherboard disc. Maybe when I reinstall Windows.

[Saladin]

kaspersky. been using it for a while, its light weight, not a resource hog and easy to use. if you do have a virus their recovery software is phenomenal. never had a virus/trojan/etc with it running.

[LancerBG]

I have used a few but I just have a preference for Kaspersky.